When a girl is born, her oldest brother will be considered the second man in the family and the second father. The oldest brother will be the one to look after the family when the father is missing.

Another tradition is that the first birth of a woman must be in the tent of her parents. After 6 days of birth of the child, the day before the baptism, there is a party and the two families meet the parents, paternal and maternal.

When the child is a boy, the families usually eat camel. The priority of choosing a name to the child is given to the grandfather by the father’s side. He tries to choose an appropriate name based on a leading member of the two families or frig (camp).

It also gives the opportunity to the family of the mother to choose other 6 names and make a drawing with seven possible names. Thus, the mother of the newborn baby closes her eyes and has to choose one item among 7 bracelets or 7 sticks, each with a name and immersed in a gadha (wooden bowl) filled with milk.

This ritual is not common anymore and the newborn baby’s name is usually chosen by the paternal grandfather. The person of whom the grandfather has chosen his grandson's name, must be rewarded with a gift, preferably a camel or a horse. If aforementioned person died, one must bring a gift to his/her family.

Baptism is only a family party without Muslim clergy intervention. We haven’t godfather figure. If one day the child is missing his/her parents, the child’s family is responsible to take care of him. My five children are named in this way. Ahmed is from someone called Ahmed from his paternal family, Mohamed Salem is from one of my brothers, Fatimetu comes from an aunt’s name, Nina from a friend of mine and Agaila a niece of mine.

This song opens the album Shouka. It allowed me to work with the poet Lamin Allal, with whom I made other songs years ago in the camps.

I was invited to participate in the Congress of Saharaui culture in December 2008. The event took place in the refugee camp of Auserd. The Sahrawi Minister of Culture, Khadija Hamdi, also assited to this congress. I decided to prepare a song to perform in this event. I called the Saharawi poet Lamin, who lived in Granada, and asked him to prepare a poem about the importance of the Saharawi culture and its music. Lamin sent me his poem “culture” by fax and I collected it in Barcelona. I rehearsed this song with Vadiya on my mobile phone. Vadiya lives in Bilbao and we were not able to prepare the song together before the congress. It was a very good experience and we decided to work on more songs for the album Shouka.

I always have ideas for songs. I explain the idea to the poet and he/she prepares the poem. After the poem is written, if there is something I want to change the poet fixes it. I always communicate with the poets on my mobile phone or internet. I am very happy to work with Lamin. I always learn a lot from him and his poems always turn into good songs.

My family was nomadic. We lived amongst a many tents organized together. Whenever one of my brothers got married, they’d raise another tent for the new family. I wasn’t born in a hospital; I was born in a tent in the Sahara desert. My mother wasn’t in a bed, rather she gave birth like one does in the desert: standing up with her hands in the air holding onto a rope that extended down from the top of the tent pushing to bring me into the world.

We regularly changed friq (our camp). We travelled in caravan and we moved depending on the conditions of the winds, the temperature or whether or not we had water. Sometimes we moved everyday other times we spend more than a month in one place. In the summertime we are usually stayed like three months in one place. But, in winter we had to move often to find vegetation for the animals.

Most of my childhood we spent in the area around Smara and Hausa, which are in the north. But I also lived for a year in El Aaiún and also in Eyderia and Mahbes. I usually moved where my three older brothers were assigned too, from one region to another we’d follow them with our tents and our herd, but not always. In 1974 we had to start selling off the camels and the goats because there weren’t many more herdsmen to take care of them.

The oldest of my five children was two years studying in Tripoli when he contracted bone tuberculosis. At that time his father was the First Secretary at the embassy in Cuba and he sent a plane ticket for our son to be treated in Cuba and to continue his studies.

Two of my daughters were studying in Algeria. When they got their Algerian passports the official in charge accidentally switched their photos; so officially Nina is Fatimetou and Fatimetou is Nina.

My fourth child, got a parasitical infection when he was only six months old. He had to take many medications and gluten. As a celiac child he was always sick. I have struggled very much with him. When we were in the Canary Islands he was in the hospital for 3 months. He came to Spain in 1991 and was in the hospital in Barcelona for 3 months. Just so that he would sleep I had to sit with him cradled in my arms all through the night. Later he spent a year in a church with nuns because he was too weak to live in the refugee camps with us. I tried again and again to have him with me at the camps. In 1994 Bachir, his father spent six months in Oran with him to cure him, but his sickness always got worse. Some nurses brought him again to Spain to live with a family in León. Here he stayed until 1997 and then another family in Granda took care him. Whenever I was on tour in Spain I visited him. He has spent almost his entire life in Spain. I dedicated the song Salem to him.

Agaila, my youngest daughter came to Spain in 2003. She did very well in school and she helps me improve my Spanish. She doesn’t forget her Hassania, our language, nor our traditions. For instance she would never read a romantic book or watch a movie with love scenes in front of her father. She studies social nursing.

The first time I was just 13 years old when I was forced to marry because of an ancient custom of our culture. I didn’t want to get married but my family told me I had to marry this man. My older brothers didn’t like the idea, but my mother and father had the final word in our house. I remember that on our wedding night they dressed me a white melfa and a black melfa and they needed two people to bring me to the door of the other jaima (tent) because I was crying and screaming in such defiance. When I arrived at his home, he grabbed me forcefully. I struggled against him, trying to run away but he ignored my protests. Many people came, they were singing songs and then left me alone with him. I began to cry and cry. As soon as he released his grip on me I bolted away, running to my family’s jaima. He was 25 years old.

When I got home my mother asked me why I had run away. I told her that I didn't like that man. She told me: “Mariem he is a good man.” But when he came to my parent’s tent I ran away and hided at one of my brothers' tent. I continued on like this, from one family member to another for almost three years until my brothers finally paid him to allow us to get a divorce. This was just four or five days before we had to leave the Sahara.

The second time was in Smara. They had released some Western Saharawi prisoners who’d been arrested by the Spanish. I joined the big celebration party. This was the first time I’d seen a guitar. A boy was playing it and I was singing. The Spanish police came with nightsticks in hand so we all ran as fast as we could. I jumped out the window. I was 15 years old.

The third time was much more dramatic. It was the most difficult moment for me and my people ever have been through. I didn’t see the “Green March” but I heard my brother’s saying the Morrocan troops would come either tomorrow or the day after. They were glued to the radio. We saw group after group fleeing. One night my brothers told me we had to pack up our jaimas - there were four tents altogether, including my uncles and my older sister - we also packed water and food all into my brother’s two cars. The rest of us begin the escape on foot with all of our livestock. We walked all through the night until sunrise met us at a river. There we waited until nightfall to hide from danger. At that point my brothers arrived in their cars. During the day nobody could move. We were petrified that the Morrocans would spot us. We could hear the bombs, bum, bum, bum, to the north, near the towns of Smara and Hausa. I was 17 years old. We packed the goats into one car and the family squeezed into another and we set out for Wad Mheiriz. There we waited for 20 days and 20 nights until an Algerian truck came to bring us food, medicine and clothing. From there we were taken to Tifariti because the Morrocan airforce continued bombing and in Um Draiga many people had been wounded and killed. We waiting in Tifariti for 2 days. I did what all of the others did, making my melfa into a sort of tent to protect the little ones from the sun. This was worth little to protect them from the cold of the night and the pouring rain. Others dug pits next to the trees to protect themselves. After two long days another truck came and brought us to Rabuni, leaving many of our people behind us waiting. As soon as we left the Morrocan airforce began dropping more bombs. Getting out in Rabuni the truck immediately headed back from where we had come to collect more refugees.